I was wondering how the referee crew decided which robot would be penalized for being "off sides" during the match? I know that you have to assign it to a specific robot for the scoring system, but I never knew how they decided which one? If a ref from an event can clear this up, that'd be awesome!

I don't think it matters. The penalty counts against the entire alliance.

True. But, it may effect how others look at that team for drafting. If a team is constantly getting penalized for off sides, scouts may notice that. But the refs don't know the strategy of the alliances and who was supposed to be the backbot, and thus, should be penalized for not following the strategy.

Ogre is right it doesn't really matter because it is a 5-point penalty, but the way we called it at the Boilermaker Regional was that the two mid-field referees would keep track of the backbot and if it crossed the line at any point, they would call the penalty on that team. If after the 5 second buffer time the alliance had no established backbot (which rarely happened), I beleive they noted the penalty on the alliance as a whole and the scoring table just put the penalty into one of team's penatly points for the purpose of scoring the match correctly.

True. But, it may effect how others look at that team for drafting. If a team is constantly getting penalized for off sides, scouts may notice that. But the refs don't know the strategy of the alliances and who was supposed to be the backbot, and thus, should be penalized for not following the strategy.

Yes, it may reflect negatively on the team that was the actual offender. But, it also reflects negatively on the other teams in the alliance.
The whole alliance is responsible for their strategy. The other two coaches should recognize that the alliance has no backbot and make the proper adjustments.
I do see your point on drafting though.

Ogre is right it doesn't really matter because it is a 5-point penalty, but the way we called it at the Boilermaker Regional was that the two mid-field referees would keep track of the backbot and if it crossed the line at any point, they would call the penalty on that team. If after the 5 second buffer time the alliance had no established backbot (which rarely happened), I beleive they noted the penalty on the alliance as a whole and the scoring table just put the penalty into one of team's penatly points for the purpose of scoring the match correctly.

Hey Collin!

Brant is exactly right-- Andrew and I kept track of the backbot, and made a call on who to call it on. When I called on a particular team, basically, whichever team was last on the backbot side got called-- if there were none, it was the team that seemed like they should be on the backbot side (closest to center, or looking like it was going to the backbot side, but never actually ever getting there). During the one match where an alliance NEVER had a robot on the backbot side, and we called 5 backbot penalties, we just gave the penalties to the scorekeepers, and they assigned them randomly, but that is the only case.

Thanks for a great Boilermaker regional everyone! I can't wait for next year!!